24. Jack
Chapter 24
Jack
T here is something different about Molly. She has a sort of glow about her. Jack wonders if it’s a pregnancy thing, a change in the hormones or whatever it is that kicks in once a woman’s body realises it’s got a baby on board. Whatever it is, she’s definitely happier, softly singing to herself as she stirs at the gloopy mixture in her bowl and watches it turn blue. There is an earlier batch, the same but pink, lined up on the kitchen counter, and a big unopened box of icing sugar that makes his tummy rumble at the thought of what delights are to come. If he only gets to lick out the bowls, he’ll be happy.
‘I hope I’ve made enough,’ she says, probably to herself, but he answers anyway.
‘Enough for what?’
‘I promised some samples, for a few possible customers. Cupcakes, mainly, but I thought I might try a few biscuits too.’
‘You’re giving them away? For free?’
‘That’s what sample generally means, Jack.’
‘You’ll never make any money that way.’
‘Speculate to accumulate.’
He has to admit she’s probably right, but he’s quite surprised to hear her talking like that. Like a real businesswoman, who might just know what she’s doing.
‘And can you spare a sample or two for me, do you think?’
‘If you’re good, I might.’ She gives him one of her sparkling smiles, with just a hint of naughty about it.
‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he says, waving his hips in exaggerated circles. ‘And you know I’m good. It’s why you married me.’
She laughs out loud. ‘Big-head! Now get out of my kitchen and don’t come back until at least five minutes after the timer beeps.’
‘I know to keep my distance when you’ve got a bun in the oven!’
She picks up a tea towel and swipes it at him. ‘Not a bun. Cakes! There’s a difference, not that I’d expect you to know that, as all you do is eat them. Just give it time for them to cool down, that’s all.’
Molly’s bun in the oven is sixteen weeks old already and according to her list of fruit sizes has now reached the avocado stage. Jack has never eaten an avocado and isn’t sure he would recognise one if he saw one. The little fluttering movements she says she can feel in her belly are becoming more frequent. Sometimes she grabs at his hand and puts it there, hoping he can feel them too, but he’s never really sure if he can. Until he can see it and feel it, this baby is a lot more real to Molly than it is to him.
‘I’ll pop out for a pint then, if that’s okay with you?’ He puts his jacket on and checks the pocket for his wallet and keys. A long cool beer in a pub garden somewhere is just what he needs. And a bit of thinking time too. He always said he wouldn’t let work take over his life, that weekends were the time to get away from all that, but right now he finds he is thinking about it a lot of the time. The project, the deadline for getting it up and running, the dread of something going wrong.
‘Fine. But no getting drunk. You know the effect too much beer has on you.’ She looks down, pointedly, at his crotch area and shakes her head.
He kisses her on the cheek, dodging out of the way of her messy hands. How does she do that? Get the mixture all over herself, instead of keeping it in the bowl? Too much dipping and licking, probably. There is something faintly erotic about that thought, and he promises himself he really will have just the one pint and be back in time to sample whatever dipping and licking might be on offer tonight. It’s been a while.
He isn’t expecting to see anyone he knows. It’s not exactly the poshest of pubs but the only one in walking distance to have any decent outdoor space. Yet, as he takes his pint from the bar and goes through into the garden, there she is. The girl who works downstairs, the one who sits next to Carly. He thinks her name is Susan, but he can’t be sure. He remembers a meeting by the lift, when he had only been at Mandrake’s a couple of days and she had come up to him and introduced herself, although come on to him would probably be a more accurate description. There had been something a bit too obvious about her that day, as if she was sizing him up. Making sure she grabbed his attention. The new boy. Fresh meat. He hopes she isn’t going to do it again today, but there is someone with her, a bloke, so with luck he will be spared.
He tries to avoid her gaze, and heads for a table as far away as he can, but it’s too late. She has clearly spotted him. He can feel the spark of recognition light up in her eyes from here. He tries not to look her way but he can’t miss seeing her unhook the arm of the man she is with from around her shoulders as she sits up straight and uncrosses her bare legs. Fake tanned, if he’s not mistaken. Her heels sink into the grass as she slides along to the end of the bench, grips the pole of the parasol above her head to steady herself and stands up.
‘Hello, Jack,’ she purrs, as she wobbles towards him. She probably thinks her voice is sexy but it is so not. ‘What are you doing here? And on your own too.’
‘Erm. Hi. Just out for a quick drink, making the most of the sunshine.’ He tries not to make eye contact, hoping she might take the hint and go away. Behind her, he can see her date scowling at him. But she doesn’t go away. She sits down, on the opposite side of the bench, lifting a leg up and over until it is under the table and she is sitting sideways on.
‘No wife today?’
He would have thought that was obvious, but he shakes his head. ‘She’s busy.’
‘Shame. I would have loved to meet her. You could come over and join us, if you’re lonely. Sean won’t mind.’ She flicks her head towards the man at the other table, whose expression is still on the frostier side of friendly. It looks to Jack as if Sean will mind, very much indeed.
‘No, no, I’m fine, thanks, Susan. Not stopping long.’
‘Suze!’ she says, correcting him. ‘Nobody but my gran ever calls me Susan, silly.’ Her laugh comes out like a screech, long and high-pitched. It really wasn’t that funny, and he’s not sure he likes being called silly.
‘Sorry. Suze, of course.’
‘I hear you’ve known our Carly for a while,’ she says, not moving a muscle towards leaving. ‘She seems to think very highly of you.’ She pulls a face that he can’t quite read.
‘Does she?’ He’s starting to feel uncomfortable now. What has Carly said to this woman? How much does she know? He’s suddenly very pleased that Molly isn’t with him, or there could be some embarrassing explaining to do.
‘Ten out of ten, she reckons!’ She leans towards him and laughs like a drain. ‘I can’t deny you’re bloody good-looking, but even so… You let a good one go there, you know. That girl would have followed you to the ends of the earth but what did you do? You went off and married someone else.’ She teeters a bit as she unhooks her leg and tries to get up, and he realises that she’s actually quite drunk. ‘But you keep your hands off her, you hear? She needs you to stay away, for her own good. And for yours, if I find out you’re messing her about again.’ She waggles a pointed scarlet-tipped finger at him, like a teacher telling off a naughty child. The threat of untold consequences hangs in the air between them. ‘Carly might think she loves you, but I hope she’s sensible enough to know it would be a mistake. A great big stupid mistake…’
He watches her return to her own table and plonk down into the other man’s lap, her fingers instantly latching back around the glass of wine she had left behind.
He shouldn’t let the wild ramblings of a drunk women get to him. What exactly was all that about anyway? Was she warning him off? He hasn’t thought about Carly at all today, but he does now. And those few words keep ringing in his head. Carly might think she loves you.
The kitchen is awash with cakes when he gets back.
‘I think I’ve finally got it right,’ Molly says, with a satisfied but exhausted smile. ‘The recipe, the fillings, the icing… even the colours are perfect now. Oh, I’ll still make the space-rocket cakes and the flowery stuff if someone orders them, but these are going to be my main focus from now on. Gender-reveal cakes are go!’ She says that last bit in the voice he remembers from re-runs of that old TV show. Thunderbirds are go! ‘Now all I need is a name for them, then I can get some professional business cards made up. Any ideas?’
The only idea that’s running through Jack’s head has nothing to do with cakes. Carly loves him. Carly thinks he’s a ten out of ten. Carly needs to be kept away from him, for her own good.
‘Jack! Are you listening to me?’ Molly has boiled the kettle and is waiting for him to tell her whether he wants tea or coffee.
‘Sorry, Mol. I was out of it for a moment there. Must be the effects of the sunshine.’
‘Or the beer.’ She laughs, pouring him a coffee anyway. ‘Here, this should help. And you can have a cake now they’ve cooled down. Pink or blue?’
He looks at the half a dozen she’s put on a plate beside their mugs. They all look exactly the same. ‘How can I tell which is which?’
‘Ah, that’s the magic of them, see? You can’t! And that’s the whole point. What’s inside is a mystery. Secret centres… A bit like us women, especially the pregnant ones!’ She takes his hand and pushes it up under her sweaty T-shirt, and for the first time he feels it. That little kick, like a butterfly fluttering under her skin. And in that moment, it’s real. This life, this baby, it’s really happening. Whatever choices he once had are being stripped away from him.
‘That’s it! I can call them Secret Centres . What do you think?’
But Jack isn’t listening again. Carly wants him, loves him even. And he knows he still wants her too. He had put her out of his mind for years. Just a silly fling, a moment that no one else need ever know about, a final before-the-wedding thing. He hadn’t expected to ever see her again, thought she would have forgotten him long ago, moved on with someone else. But now he’s back and she’s still here, still single, and if her drunken mate is to be believed still into him, big time.
Jack thinks about her, about what might have been, far more than he should. He’d be kidding himself to deny it. But it’s too late, isn’t it? Molly needs him now, more than ever. His baby needs him. But he didn’t ask for this baby, did he? He still doesn’t really know if he even wants it.
What if Carly needs him too? Shouldn’t he at least find out? Talk to her, make a proper decision, a proper choice, before it really is too late. Someone will get hurt whatever he does. He knows that. And he knows only too well that it could very easily be himself.
He takes a cake and bites into it. He tells himself it’s like throwing a dice. Or flipping a coin. That fate will decide. Or luck. If it’s blue, he’ll choose Carly. If it’s pink, Molly. If only it were that easy…
What’s inside? Is it blue or is it pink? He dares not look. He closes his eyes and doesn’t open them again until every crumb has been eaten.